Recent comments by Mook

Agree, already seeing it in Az.
Watching the tenant base change is interesting. Who just lost a house, who is moving up or down in the rental flow. How little it takes to put the tenant under (unable to pay rent). It is not pretty on main street.

The easy money philosophy will continue until the asset stripping is complete.

That liquidity or the confidence it provides may be the only thing keeping the $$ velocity at its current miserable rate.

Not necessarily directed at you, but there are some on HCN who want to simultaneously believe that the $1T a year being pumped out by the Fed has served no purpose other than to enrich the TBTF and inflate equity and bond bubbles, and that withdrawing that $1T a year is going to immediately re-crash the housing market (purchases of which are made in significant amounts by at least the top three quintiles).

Neither one is entirely false. But the two together can't be entirely true, either.

Do you think perhaps the withdrawal of $1 TRILLION printed dollars/yr might have any impact ?

Well, remember, it's not as though that money's been jet-skiing around the economy in the first place. A great chunk of it has been sitting on bank balance sheets. Velocity is criminally low. Has there been some asset price inflation from it all? Undoubtedly, but housing specifically has been buoyed more by 1%'ers on the high end and hedgies on the low end.

There was no unfortunate about it. The question was about the last 10 years. Mortgage rates and housing starts may have had some correlation/association up until 2001 (I picked starting 2001) but decoupled right when the biggest bubble in history started.

It seemed clear to me that your assertion all along has been that rising rates will kill the nascent sales recovery - i.e. we've since recoupled to an extent. Am I wrong?

By the way. I want to point out that - upon a rare instance of a negative economic indicator popping up - Sebastian was one of the first posters on the thread. Providing no spin and no excuses - and in fact including a link to the data for both new home sales and rates so the commentariat could investigate the correlations for themselves.

The same dynamics, and risks, that would apply to any leveraged speculative investment, now apply to j6p's primary dwelling. That's the true genius of the real estate 'miracle' accomplished over the past 40 years.

The tables are understandable, but they don't include income quintile breakdowns. The charts are well-nigh impenetrable IMO.

Also of note, these figures are all in constant dollars and broadly inclusive of tax benefits and deductions. I wouldn't be surprised if a large portion of the supposed "higher prices" being paid by the top quintile were in fact their simply not qualifying for said tax benefits due to the AMT and such.

Many librul elites seem to conveniently overlook the fact that a good chunk of the US populace isn't really cut out for a career that offer challenges exceeding those of forklift driver. In fact, they are willing to stand in line for a shot at "those" jobs.
Barring "those jobs" their alternate choices range from welfare to crime & prison.

What? If anything I think it's the other way around - righties tend to subscribe to "anyone can build themselves up" while lefties tend to think there are those who can't pull themselves off the bottom and a "win" is keeping them off the streets and out of prison by whatever means.

For the record, I think your view is not just condescending but inaccurate. Spend some time in rural flyover watching a team of guys with an eighth-grade education seamlessly operate and maintain $100 million worth of industrial machinery and you might change your tune.

JUSTICE PLANS NEW CASES FROM FINANCIAL CRISIS — Attorney General Eric Holder says the Justice Department is planning to announce a number of new cases stemming from the financial crisis against large financial institutions in the coming months.

And hopefully, the inevitable arrest of two or three 30-something former traders and risk managers eighteen organizational levels below the CEO will once again impinge upon Ken the urgent necessity for a HCN :onion: icon (hovertext: Life imitates The Onion).

Perhaps the lender shouldn't loan a pile of money to a student that is unlikely to be able to pay it back in a timely fashion? And if they do, they could suffer the losses so as to be unlikely to make the same unwise decision in the future. Dear god, that would be terrible. Clearly, the government must do something to keep tuitions rising forever while not making anyone feel left behind. I know -- we'll offer more debt at even lower quality standards!

The median price paid for a home in California last month was $363,000, up 3.1 percent from $352,000 in June and up 29.2 percent from $281,000 in July 2012. July was the 17th consecutive month in which the state's median sale price rose year-over-year. In March/April/May 2007 the median peaked at $484,000. The post-peak trough was $221,000 in April 2009.

Back closer to the peak than to the trough.

Clearly it's the former that represents sanity and sustainability, while the latter was an unfortunate and temporary market failure. You know, like the flash crash.